高考英语阅读理篇章结构题解题技巧

篇章结构题解题技巧

　　对《考试大纲》中提出的理解文章的基本结构的要求，往往通过篇章结构题来考查。考生要学会把握文章的脉络，理解段落层次之间的关系，弄清作者的写作方法。英语的文章讲究使用主题段和主题句。主题段通常在文章的开头，简要概括文章的中心思想，主题句根据段落的写作手法的不同可能在段落的开头，也可能出现在段落的中间或末尾。段与段之间常用词语连接，承上启下，使文章行文连贯，逻辑严密。为突出主题作者可能采用不同的写作手法来组织文章，通过举例、比较、类比等手法来透彻阐明主题观点。高考对这类题型的考查主要体现在以下几个方面：

　　1． 确定指代关系。最常见的提问方式是：The underlined word “they/it/…” in paragraph… refers to… …

　　2． 对句子意义或作用的理解。最常见的提问方式是：The sentence “… …” in paragraph … means ….; The example of … … in para….is used to illustrate/show … ….

　　3． 对段落大意或段落作用的理解。最常见的提问方式是：The last paragraph mainly tell us that … …; The purpose of writing Paragraph … is …. ….

　　4． 对文章组织结构的理解。最常见的提问方式是：How is the passage organized?；Which of the following best shows the structure of the passage?

　　在上述几类题中考生感觉难做的题是第四类, 这类题是近两年来出现的主要考查议论文结构的命题新方式,且逐步得到语言教育专家们的认可。并逐步推广到对其他文体结构的考查。分析这一类的题我们看出：对文章组织结构的考查不外乎两个层次。一是按段落的组织方法理解文章的结构，一是按写作方法（论证方法）理解文章的结构。

　　首先，看看这样考查从段落层次理解文章的结构。这类题经常用到的提问方式是：Which of the following best shows the structure of the passage? 常见的段落结构有如下几种情况：

　　图1表明：①（Paragraph 1）是主题段（提出论题或论点），②、③段是就同一论据或者问题的同一方面作论述，④用另一论据材料或者从问题的另一方面论述，⑤段是结论段或者是用来重述论题、强调论点的段落。同样我们很容易理解图2、3、4所示的段落结构的意义。

　　下面具体看看05年江苏卷E篇：

　　The twentieth century saw greater changes than any century before changes for the better, changes for the worse, changes that brought a lot of benefits to human beings, changes that put man in danger .Many things caused the changes, but, in my opinion, the most important was the progress in science.

　　Scientific research in physics and biology has vastly broadened our views. It has given us a deeper knowledge of the structure of matter and of the universe, it has brought us a better understanding of the nature of life and of its continuous development. Technology in the application of science has made big advances that have benefited us in nearly every part of life.

　　The continuation of such activities in the twenty-first century will result in even greater advantages to human beings: in pure science—a wider and deeper knowledge in all fields of learning; in applied science—a more reasonable sharing of material benefits, and better protection of the environment.

　　Sadly, however, there is another side to the picture. The creativity of science has been employed in doing damage to mankind. The application of science and technology to the development and production of weapons of mass destruction has created a real danger to the continued existence of the human race on this planet. We have seen this happen in the case of nuclear weapons, Although their actual use has so far occurred only in the Second World War, the number of nuclear weapons that were produced and made ready for use was so large that if the weapons had actually been used, the result could have been the ruin of the human race, as well as of many kinds of animals.

　　William Shakespeare said. “The web of our life is of a mingled yarn（纱线）, good and ill together. “The above brief review of the application of only one part of human activities—science seems to prove what Shakespeare said. But does it have to be so? Must the ill always go together with the good? Are we biologically programmed for war?

　　72．Which of the following best shows the structure of the passage?

　　理解文章段落结构，我们很容易找到答案A。

　　接下来再来看看这样从论证方法上考查对议论文结构的理解。掌握了议论文常见的写作方法，我们不难理解议论文的论证过程。从论证方法上讲，常见的议论文结构有以下两类：

　　一、Put forward a question →Analyze the question → Solve the question 这就是“提出问题、分析问题、解决问题”的过程；二、Argument/idea → Evidence → conclusion/ restating the idea

　　这就是“由论点到论据到结论或者强调论点”的过程。

　　对说明文、夹叙夹议类文章结构的理解，只要我们弄清段落意义和段落之间的关系，很容易理解其结构。看看下面的例题我们也许会得到一些启发。

　　例1：

　　I receive a lot of emails every time a column is published in 21st Century. The majority of questions I get are like this: “My English is still very poor, could you please give me some advice?” Since this kind of question is so big and so vague, any answers will be too broad or too general. In fact, asking questions is an art that needs training and practice in itself. And I would like to offer the following tips:

　　Always contextualize your question. If you really want to ask for advice on something, you need to provide a brief description of how you came up with the question and how you can benefit from asking it. For instance, if you need to improve your English, you need to state the skill area you are in the greatest need of improving, and what difficulties you encounter that cause you so many problems

　　The second piece of advice is that your question should be focused and specific. By that I mean that you might have a lot of questions, but choose the one that is most important and at the same time the least complicated.

　　Third, you can practise asking one question in multiple ways. For instance, if you are interested in knowing how you can boost your confidence in speaking, you might consider asking: “I often feel nervous before I ask a question, how can I overcome my anxiety?” “Could you share with me your experience of speaking in front of others?”

　　Of course, the best way to ask good questions is through the practice of questioning. I highly encourage you to seek opportunities to ask questions. It takes time to be a really good questioner.

　　How is the text organized?

　　A．Topic---argument----description

　　B．Opinion—discussion---explanation

　　C．Main idea---comparison--- supporting examples

　　D．Topic ----argument----conclusion

　　解析：文章一开始就提出本文要讲的中心, 然后进行论述, 最后得出结论。由此,我们不难得出答案是D。

　　例2：

　　（05 浙江卷 C 篇）

　　In the course of working my way through school, I took many jobs I would rather forget. But none of these jobs was as dreadful as my job in an apple plant. The work was hard; the pay was poor; and, most of all, the working conditions were terrible.

　　First of all, the job made huge demands on my strength. For ten hours a night, I took boxes that rolled down a metal track and piled them onto a truck. Each box contained twelve heavy bottles of apple juice. I once figured out that I was lifting an average of twelve tons of apple juice every night.

　　I would not have minded the difficulty of the work so much if the pay had not been so poor. I was paid the lowest wage of that time—two dollars an hour. Because of the low pay, I felt eager to get as much as possible. I usually worked twelve hours a night but did not take home much more than $ 100 a week.

　　But even more than the low pay, what made me unhappy was the working conditions. During work I was limited to two ten-minute breaks and an unpaid half hour for lunch. Most of my time was spent outside loading trucks with those heavy boxes in near-zero-degree temperatures. The steel floors of the trucks were like ice, which made my feet feel like stone. And after the production line shut down at night and most people left, I had to spend two hours alone cleaning the floor.

　　I stayed on the job for five months, all the while hating the difficulty of the work, the poor money, and the conditions under which I worked. By the time I left, I was determined never to go back there again.

　　52．How is the text organized?

　　A．Topic—Argument—Explanation

　　B．Opinion—Discussion—Description

　　C．Main idea—Comparison—Supporting examples

　　D．Introduction—Supporting examples—Conclusion

　　解析：这道题考查考生对文章组织结构的理解，把握了文章的脉络，我们不难得出答案：D。

　　2007年广东高考英语试题题型（讨论稿）中提出把篇章结构作为专门的一节来考查：要求把标有A-F的句子或段落插入到文章中标记的适当位置，使文章意义完整，结构连贯。

　　做好这一类题，要先理解全文的意义和结构，然后理解段落的意义和结构，分析句与句之间的关系，句与段落的关系。一般说来，文章中空格的地方主要是三类的句子或者段落：一是段落的主题句；二是和段落主题密切相关的细节句；三是段落或句子之间的过渡句/段。所以学会了分析句与句、句与段、段与段之间的关系做这类题并不难。下面我们来具体看一个例题：

　　阅读下面短文，请将标有A-F的句子或段落插入到文章中标号为71-75的合适位置，使文章意义完整，结构连贯；其中一个段落或句子是多余的。

　　Some twenty years ago, the performance of girls and boys in class was compared.   71   Now, the situation is reversed (颠倒) with girls consistently doing better than boys.

　　72   John Dunsford, leader of the association of head teachers of secondary schools, says that the academic failure of boys is a problem which had its roots in society rather than the classroom. Girls, more than boys, see education as a passport to a good job. On the other hand, according to Penny Lewis, a head teacher, young men lack confidence, which they hide with a show of bravado (逞能). They’re uncertain about their place in society.  73

　　Moreover, boys may learn in a different way from girls, preferring small amounts of work with immediate headlines rather than large projects stretching (延续) into the distance. And education is not seen as “cool”.  74

　　This is not just a problem in Britain. In a study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and UNESCO, girls did better than boys at reading at the age of 15 in all 45 countries. The UK ranks ninth out of the 45 countries for reading despite the fact that pupils in the UK spend less time reading than in most other countries.   75

　　A. So, what has gone wrong with the boys, and what can be done about it?

　　B. Interestingly, the study suggested that British children read for pleasure more often than those in other countries.

　　C. Boys scored better in exams, so various measures were introduced to improve the performance of girls, including having single sex girl-only classes.

　　D. This study can offer a great help to teachers and school leaders in terms of proper education to different people.

　　E. Some boys grow up in families where there is no male role model to follow.

　　F. As one contributoe to a BBC website put it, “Girls achieve more at school because they are watching the future while the boys are watching the girls.”

　　解析：这是一篇说明文。首先通读文章了解文章的中心：全文分析当前在学校女生比男生表现好的原因。文章结构简单明了：首先提出问题，然后分析原因。接下来我们来逐段分析：

　　第一段提出问题，71空后面说“现在情况颠倒过来了：女生比男生好了”，看了这句话，我们肯定能判断前一句话的大意应该是：先前的情况是男生比女生表现好。那就从选项中去看哪个句子表达的是这个意思。快速浏览A-F选项，我们得到答案C。

　　第二段分析原因。段首的空格72，应该是一个承上启下的过渡句。浏览选项，我们迅速得到答案A。段尾的73空应该是一个细节句，对前一句具体说明，能够具体说明They’re uncertain about their place in society一句的只有选项E。

　　第三段进一步分析原因。74空应该是个细节句，详细阐明男生比女生表现差的原因。这里我们不难找到答案F。

　　第四段说明这种现象的普遍存在。段尾的75空是一个接续前句的细节句。浏览剩余的选项，我们很肯定地找到答案B。

　　【实战演练练习十三】（05 江西卷 E 篇）

　　Do you have any strong opinion on co-educational or single-sex schools?

　　A supporter of co-educational schools would probably say that schools should be like the societies they belong to .In Hong Kong, men and women mix socially on a day-to-day basis .In many fields men are even likely to have female bosses. It is, therefore, desirable that boys and girls grow up together, go to school together, and prepare themselves for a society that does not value sexual separation.

　　Some would go on to argue further that growing up with members of the opposite sex is important for personal development. Regular contact（接触）can remove the strange ideas about the opposite-sex and lead to more natural relationships. Single-sex conditions are seen as leading to more extreme opinions, and possibly even as encouraging homosexuality（同性恋）, though there is no proof that this is the case.

　　Those who are against coeducation often also fix their attention on the sexual side. Some parents fear that close contact with members of the opposite sex is dangerous for teenagers. They want their children to be attentive to their studies. Such parents feel uncomfortable with modern ways and the free mixing of the sexes.

　　A stronger argument comes from research into school results. Girls grow up earlier than

　　boys ,tend to be more orderly and are likely to be better at languages. In a mixed class ,boys who might do well in a single-sex class become discouraged and take on the rule of troublemaker. Certainly in the UK this situation has greatly alarmed （惊动）the government for it to be encouraging co-educational schools to have some single-sex classes. In the UK the best schools are all single-sex, strongly suggesting that co-education is not the best answer. This may, however, not be as simple as it looks. It may simply be that the famous old schools that attract the best students happen to be single-sex, rather than that being single-sex makes them better schools.

　　72．In the third paragraph, by saying “though there is no proof that this is the case”, the writer means that         .

　　A．students in single-sex schools will certainly become homosexual

　　B．students in co-educational schools cannot have extreme opinions

　　C．students in co-educational schools are likely to be homosexual

　　D．single-sex school conditions may or may not have effects on the students

　　【实战演练练习十四】（04 重庆卷 D 篇）

　　Have you ever had the strange feeling that you were being watched? You turned around and, sure enough, someone was looking right at you!

　　Parapsychologists (灵学家) say that humans have a natural ability to sense when someone is looking at them. To research whether such a “sixth sense”really exists, Robert Baker, a psychologist(心理学家)at the University of Kentucky, performed two experiments.

　　In the first one, Baker sat behind unknowing people in public places and stared at the backs of their heads for 5 to 15 minutes. The subjects（受试者）were eating, drinking, reading，studying, watching TV, or working at a computer. Baker made sure that the people could not tell that he was sitting behind them during those periods. Later, when he questioned the subjects, almost all of them said they had no sense that someone was staring at them.

　　For the second experiment, Baker told the subjects that they would be stared at from time to time from behind a two way mirror in a laboratory setting. The people had to write down when they felt they were being stared at and when they weren’t. Baker found that the subjects were no better at telling when they were stared at and when they weren’t .Baker found that the subjects were no better at telling when they were stared at than if they had just guessed.

　　Baker concludes that people do not have the ability to sense when they’re being stared at. If people doubt the outcome of his two experiments, said Baker, “I suggest they repeat the experiments and see for themselves.”

　　68. The purpose of the two experiments is to        .

　　A. explain when people can have a sixth sense

　　B. show how people act while being watched in the lab

　　C. study whether humans can sense when they are stared at

　　D. prove why humans have a sixth sense

　　【实战演练练习十五】

　　阅读下面短文，并将文后标有A-F 的句子（或段落）插入文章中标号为71-75的合适位置，使短文结构完整。其中有一个句子（或段落）是多余的。

　　She is widely seen as proof that good looks can last forever. But, at nearly 500 years of age, time is catching up with the Mona Lisa.

　　71

　　“The thin, wooden panel on which the Mona Lisa is painted in oil has changed shape since experts checked it two years age,” the museum said.   72  .

　　73    “It is very interesting that when you’re not looking at her, she seems to be smiling, and then you look at her and she stops,” said Professor Margaret Livingstone of Harvard University, “It’s because direct vision is excellent at picking up detail, but less suited to looking at shadows. Da Vinci painted the smile in shadows.”

　　74    Da Vinci himself loved it so much that he always carried it with him, until it was eventually sold to France’s King Francis I in 1519.

　　In 1911, the painting was stolen from the Louvre by a former employee, who took it out of the museum hidden under his coat. He said he planned to return it to Italy. The painting was sent back to France two years later.

　　75

　　A. Nearly 6 million people go to see the Mona Lisa every year, many attracted by the mystery of her smile.

　　B. However, the actual history of the Mona Lisa is just as mysterious as the smile.

　　C. Visitors have notice the changes but repairing the world’s most famous painting is not easy. Experts are not sure about the materials the Italian artist used and their current chemical state.

　　D. The health of the famous picture, painted by Leonardo Da Vinci in 1905, is getting worse by the year, according to the Louvre Museum where it is housed.

　　E. The picture is now so valuable that no one can tell its exact price. Therefore, many thieves tried to steal it in any way they could think of.

　　F. During World War II, French did the painting in small towns to keep it out of the hands of German forces. Like many old ladies, the Mona Lisa has some interesting stories to tell.